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| It's estimated that well over half of all sheep flocks have some level of OPP, which is of course where a lot of bad udders come from. I know we have it to a certain degree and keep culling for it.
Anyway, what are the rest of you sheep producers doing about it? Our local vet, who is from England, says do the blood test for it, then test again in a couple months, then test again every couple years and you SHOULD get rid of it. She claims that before she left England many flocks cleaned up their problems this way. Not cheap to test because it involves drawing blood from every animal.
I've also talked to some of the vets at the Pipestone, MN vet clinic and they do know sheep, they even run a short course on sheep. Anyway, they say the heck with testing, you'll never get rid of it, you'll probably get it again anyway. They say do what we are doing, cull agressively and don't worry about it. We run a totally closed flock except for Rams and try to buy from reputable people, although stuff has happened there too. That's another story.
Anyway, anyone else have any experience on this? For the uninformed, OPP stands for Ovine Progessive Pneumonia, and it causes udders to harden after 3-5 years. | |
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OPP in sheep
